Piercing the corporate PAC veil

Just in time for the silly season–a way to identify who’s paying for the slew of political ads we can expect to see (or have already been victimized by) from now until Election Day.

No longer will candidates be able to hid behind the anonymity that PACs afforded their campaigns. The “Super PAC App,” uses audio recognition technology to identify: “what campaign or organization created it, how much it cost and how accurate the claims made in the ad actually are. It also lets users rate the ads with a variety of responses, including love, fair, fishy and fail.”

Political junkies “can also use the app to check out political ads being run in other states — Iowans can check in on Ohio, New Yorkers can get a feel for the message being pushed in Florida, and so on.”

“The app was created by Jennifer Hollett and Dan Siegel, and is the product of a class project at MIT’s Media Lab. The pair are hoping the app builds an engaged community around the app, full of users submitting new ads they’ve spotted on the web or on TV.” It is currently available for iPhones only.